Three Aunties: Building a Dinner Delivery Service for New Parents

Henry Yuen opened his first business in 2016 with his twin brother: a grab-and-go sushi shop in San Francisco’s Financial District. It worked so well that a second location followed about 18 months later.

Then the pandemic emptied downtown, and the brothers had to pivot and spread their risk. Yuen started a catering business, while his twin set up a business in Hong Kong. By 2025, Yuen had moved into his own commissary kitchen in South San Francisco — and in that same year, he and his wife had their first child.

A dinner service inspired by a newborn

Like most new parents, the Yuens found themselves with little energy for cooking. The opportunity was clear: “We thought, why don’t we cook on behalf of new parents?” Yuen says. “You don’t have to wash dishes, you don’t have to prep, you don’t have to cook. All you need is 10 minutes to reheat everything.”

Three Aunties launched at the end of May 2026, serving pre-packaged Cantonese-style dinners. There are different dishes every day: customers pick one to three mains, and every order comes with a seasonal vegetable dish and a slow-simmered soup. Mains lean on Cantonese family staples like steamed fish, braised beef brisket, and steamed spareribs, with the occasional Sichuan, Taiwanese, or Southeast Asian dish in the rotation. Meals are delivered chilled, Monday to Friday.

The Chinese name, 三嬸, stands for three things Three Aunties saves its customers: worry, time, and effort.

“I always wanted to do something different, from the sushi all the way to Three Aunties,” Yuen says. “Everything is an adventure for me.”

Seeking sustainable growth

Three Aunties grew rapidly in the first month, marketing mainly in Facebook groups for new moms.

Demand is still growing, but Yuen is holding off on accepting new customers while he searches for the right kitchen team. “I never imagined how hard hiring is right now, especially in the Bay Area,” he says.

His goal for the end of the year is to have a stable kitchen team and double the number of families he serves.

How the delivery day works

Bay Area traffic is one of the reasons young families need a service like Three Aunties: commuters who leave work at 5 or 5:30 pm often aren’t home until 6:30, leaving little time to cook. And ordering takeout through delivery apps is “super expensive with all those fees,” Yuen says.

So the delivery day is planned to avoid traffic. Here’s how the process works:

• Order: Customers order through Three Aunties’ Shopify store, booking one or several days at a time. A new menu goes up every Wednesday at noon. Orders close at 10 am the day before delivery, Monday to Friday.
• Cook and chill: Meals are cooked each morning, sealed in aluminum trays with reheating instructions on the lid, and refrigerated below 41°F, in line with health department rules.
• Pack: Orders go into thermal bags with ice packs.
• Deliver: Drivers leave at 12:30 pm and finish by 6:30 pm. The six-hour window avoids the heaviest traffic and gets dinner there before parents need it.
• Cover the region: Two routes cover San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, and southern Alameda County, from Daly City to San Jose and across the bay to Fremont and Hayward, at roughly 85 miles per driver per day.

Three Aunties uses its own contract drivers, rather than a third-party delivery app. Cost is one reason, but the other is trust and control. Many customers live in apartment buildings, and Yuen wants meals delivered to the door, not left at the front desk.

“Imagine you’re a mother of two,” he says. “You need that bag right outside your door, not down at reception.”

Routific: “The right choice for small businesses like us”

Yuen first came across Routific in a comparison of Onfleet alternatives on its blog, while researching delivery management platforms. He chose it as the most affordable option for small businesses planning to grow. Routific’s free plan for up to 100 orders a month offered a low-risk start. “We’re a small business. I didn’t know how many orders I could do in a month, or even a day,” Yuen says. “So I started small.”

He had three main requirements:

• Notifications that tell customers when dinner is coming
• Spreadsheet import with order numbers and addresses
• Multi-vehicle routing

He started with email notifications, then switched to SMS when customers said they preferred texts. Each message links to a delivery tracker branded with the Three Aunties logo.

Orders get from Shopify to Routific through a workflow Yuen built himself. He used Claude to create an internal operations app that turns each day’s Shopify orders into a spreadsheet, which he imports into Routific to plan routes. He plans to give Routific’s native Shopify integration a try too.

Routes that respect driver preferences

Yuen drove the first week of deliveries himself, to experience the driver mobile app the way his team would. Drivers tell him it’s easy to use, and they didn’t need any training. It’s simple to take a photo for proof of delivery, mark each order as delivered, leave notes if necessary, and then move on to the next stop.

Routific gives him the flexibility to plan routes according to his drivers’ knowledge and preferences. For example, one driver prefers to cross the bridge into the East Bay first, then loop back through Milpitas and San Jose toward Palo Alto, where he lives. Yuen has used Routific’s patented Draw Route feature to create routes that match these preferences. He also uses the lasso tool to easily move stops between drivers.

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What’s next?

Yuen says once the kitchen team is in place to grow the business, the software side is ready. “The sky’s the limit! We’re excited to continue growing Three Aunties and see how far we can take it. And I’m confident Routific can scale with me as I grow.”